Wicked Hunger (25 page)

Chills run a marathon down my spine. “Oscar was right,” I whisper.

“Looks like it. Ivy was chosen, by someone, to kill the assassin. Whatever that means. Who exactly are the assassins, anyway?”

“It must mean Zander…and me.” I can feel Ketchup press in closer to me after hearing my words. His concern is comforting, but Ivy’s sights are set on Zander right now.

“The assassin. That doesn’t really sound like Zander, though. Sure, your brother’s not the most compassionate guy in the world, or the most interesting, but he’s not an assassin. Unless you count the teams he plays against.”

I look down at the original passage in the book. I know what the words mean now, but I feel like we’re missing something. The clue appears in the last word. The Italian word for assassin is
Sicarius
. I recognize the code word my parents taught us from birth and suddenly feel sick. Oscar was right. If they taught us that word, they knew about all of this. Anger builds under my skin, but I force my attention back to the words.

The translation put no significance on the word when it spit it back out, but I notice that the word in the book is capitalized. Sicarius. “It’s not just a noun,” I say. “It’s a title. Look how it’s capitalized, Ketchup, like a team or a company name.”

“Like a terrorist group, an enemy.”

“But, that doesn’t make any sense. How could there be this whole group of wackos intent on killing me and my brothers? I know there have been others in our family, but how big of a threat can we really be?”

“Van,” Ketchup says slowly as he thumbs through the book, “I don’t think this is just about you and your brothers. This is way too much for a couple of messed up kids. Look how old all of this stuff is. Centuries. There’s more of you somewhere. There has to be. And whatever crazy group Ivy is a part of, they’ve been hunting these Sicarius people for centuries all over the world. If it was just one family, they would have killed them off a long time ago.”

“More?” I feel a little lightheaded all of a sudden. Was that the lie my parents told that broke Oscar?

Knowing there are more of us, that could mean help, knowledge, a real life maybe. The tiniest shake of my head makes me sway. My hands grip the table for support as Ketchup wraps his arm around my shoulders. More people like me. I don’t know whether to be relieved or terrified. Oscar killed our parents. Zander, he…he killed Lisa. What lives will I steal?

Visions of dozens, hundreds of people dying to feed an eternal hunger assail me without stopping. But amid the waves of death and carnage, there is a bubble of hope in my mind. If there are others, maybe they can help me learn how to control my hunger. Surely my family isn’t the first ones to try and abstain. Are we?

“Van, what are we going to do? It’s getting late. School will be out soon and Ivy will be meeting Zander after his practice.”

I was already scared that Ivy was going to do something bad by helping Zander. Like every other answer I’ve gotten today, this isn’t the one I wanted to hear. “Ketchup, we have to stop her.”

“How? I have a feeling there’s a lot more to Ivy Guerra than we thought.”

“It doesn’t matter. We have to stop her from killing Zander. I won’t lose another brother.”

My brain starts running at high speed. There has to be an answer somewhere. Spinning, I take in the room again. Nothing. Bare walls and velvet curtains. I drop my gaze to the writing on the floor. Reaching for Ketchup, I’m about to ask him to translate the writing. His own hand gripping my arm stops me.

“Van, she isn’t going to kill Zander.”

Those words should be good news, but I can hear the dread in his voice. “What?”

“The book said, ‘your life is the price of this honor.’ It said she’d vanquish the Sicarius, but not by killing them. She’s the one who has to die, not Zander.”

“But…that doesn’t make sense. Why would she kill herself…?” The rest of my thought trails off as realization slaps me. “No, no, no. Ketchup, she’s going to make Zander kill her! He must have told her enough that she knows how to trigger his hunger so he’ll lose control. She’ll sacrifice herself to expose him.”

“Why? What would that accomplish? It’s like you said before, everyone will forget after a while. She’ll be dead and gain nothing from it.”

I growl at the holes in my knowledge. I know I’m right about this. There’s a piece of the explanation missing. I’m sure it’s in the book, but we don’t have time to translate an entire book on a phone! There has to be something else. Something in this room. My eyes fall back to the writing on the floor.

“Ketchup, tell me what that says. Hurry!”

Maybe it’s nothing, but it was important enough to turn into a work of art on the floor of Ivy’s personal suicide temple.

“Okay,” he says after a minute, “here’s what it says. One life for the destruction of many. Expose the Sicarius to seal his family’s fate.”

The air seems to grow thick around me. It slides down my throat and chokes me. Somehow, I manage to force my voice through the cloying panic. “If Ivy makes Zander kill her, these psychos will know that my family are these Sicarius things. They’ll come, and they’ll kill the rest of us, just to make sure we don’t hurt anyone else.”

“Van, that is the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard,” Ketchup says. “Why go through the trouble of having one of their own people commit suicide? I mean, it sounds like Zander has already given Ivy plenty of reason to convince her that he’s one of these Sicarius people. So why not just come and kill him and his family? Why waste the life of one of their own?”

I shake my head, confused as well. “I don’t know. This group is old. These traditions seem to go back for hundreds of years.”

“Tradition can’t really be enough to give up your life when you don’t need to,” Ketchup argues. “Maybe we could convince Ivy.”

Judging by her temple, I seriously doubt that. My mind replays the translation again. One sentence sticks out, possibly giving me the answer. “Maybe it’s the reward,” I say.

“What?”

I grab his phone and go back to the first translation. “See. It said that if she gave up her life she would be given the highest reward possible. Ketchup, I don’t think this is just some group Ivy belongs to. It’s more like her religion. I think she believes that if she forces Zander to kill her, she’ll go to some kind of martyr’s paradise and have everything she ever wanted. Isn’t that why Muslim suicide bombers do what they do? The reward of forgiveness, paradise, and dark-eyed virgins?”

“If this is her religion,” Ketchups says, “then I don’t think we should waste any time trying to change her mind.”

I nod in agreement, but am sickened at the realization that there is only one way to stop her. I thought that all I had to do to save my brother’s life was stop one twisted girl. That’s not even the half of it. An army of ancient sword wielding fanatics is about to find out my family’s darkest secret, and we’re the only ones who know. It’s me and Ketchup against a centuries-old secret society of trained killers.

I
don’t know how I resisted telling Ivy everything last night. I had already decided that keeping her close was worth the consequences of revealing the truth. I didn’t know where to start, though, so I let Ivy take the lead by asking me questions. Her first question, “How was Van able to heal herself so fast after scorching her hand on the oven?” seemed to knock some common sense back into my head. My sister’s name reminded me that I wouldn’t be the only one facing the consequences if I told Ivy everything and got burned.

So I tried to answer her questions as vaguely as possible. I did admit that we can both heal quickly, and that we have trouble controlling our impulses, but I tried to play it up as some of the same craziness that landed Oscar in a mental hospital. Ivy didn’t completely believe me and I ended up giving her a very basic explanation of our hunger. She did seem to be satisfied with the answers she was able to get out of me and stopped pushing after a while.

I know the conversation isn’t over. At some point, I’ll either be forced to tell her the whole truth or walk away. I can’t stand the idea of walking away from her.

Ivy thinks she can help me. No one else has been able to, but she seemed so sure of herself. She wants to help me, which feels incredibly good. It’s probably wishful thinking on her part. If not…if she could really show me how to control my hunger, there might be a real possibility of me getting to live a semi-normal life. That’s a huge if.

Walking quickly, almost skipping, Ivy makes her way across the parking lot to me. The struggle to control my hunger begins. Watching her come toward me sends equal amounts of anxiety and pleasure through my body. She doesn’t seem to share in my nerves. Her bright smile is almost enough to chase away my dark thoughts, but not quite. The way Van flipped out when I told her about the movie keeps shoving my hope back down.

“So,” Ivy says when she approaches me, “are you ready to give this a try?”

I hesitate. “Ivy, I’m not so sure a movie is a good idea. It’s dark and close…”

“But we’ll be surrounded by other people too, and movies are always so loud. You said noise and other people help distract you.”

True. That was part of the reason my mom always kept classical music playing in our house, and why we were encouraged to try team sports rather than individual sports. But a theater might contain others that excite my hunger, and that will only make this harder. “It’s still risky. I’ll be right next to you, smelling and feeling you every second. It might be more than I can handle.”

“You’ll be fine,” she reassures me. “I told you how after the break in at our apartment I was so freaked out that my mom made me do all this meditation stuff. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. It will help.”

“Ivy…”

Giving me a stern look, Ivy says, “The only way you’re ever going to be able to stay with me is if you can get used to me, right?”

I nod.

“So we have to try something or we might as well just go our separate ways now. Is that what you want?”

“No, of course not.” I argue with her, but in truth, I will try anything she suggests. I have to find a way to be with Ivy without killing her.

Ivy slowly moves closer to me. The scent of her, the feel of her life force nudging my hunger tightens my muscles. She takes another step. An ache begins in the center of my chest. Ivy’s plan is to desensitize me to her presence. Judging by how being close to her now feels even worse than last night, I don’t have a lot of faith in her plan.

“Why don’t we start out small?” Ivy suggests.

“How small?”

She smiles. “How about, what movie do you want to see?”

Thoughts start running through my head. I looked up the local movie schedule during lunch. My decision doesn’t have as much to do with my movie preferences as it does my cynical outlook. “There’s a documentary about some underwater cave in South America playing at the theater on San Mateo. Let’s try that.”

“Spelunking?” Ivy asks incredulously.

I frown at her. “This is already going to be hard enough without violence, sex, or anything else that might set me off playing on a huge screen right in front of me.”

“Sorry,” Ivy says, “I know this isn’t about the movie. You’re choice just caught me off guard. It sounds like a perfect movie for what we’re doing. What time does it start?”

“Not for a few hours. Do you want to get something to eat first?”

“That sounds good.”

Ivy steps around me as if it is completely natural for her to be getting into my truck, but she takes care not to touch me or get too close on her way. I am not nearly as confident as I follow suit. My steps are sluggish. In my head, Van’s outrage and warnings are blaring again. I have gotten practiced at ignoring such things, and I do it again now. I have to. All my focus goes into getting into the truck next to Ivy without losing control of my hunger.

Right away, I turn on the air conditioner and the radio. The semi-physical barrier of blasting wind between us mixed with voices loud enough to drown everything else out helps…somewhat. I try not to look at Ivy as she sits very still in the passenger’s seat. I shake my head against the intensity of the affect she has on me.

I really thought this would get easier.

With Ketchup, I know it has gotten more bearable to have him around. The first day we met, when I came home to find him and Van on the porch swing with their mouths inches away from each other, much to my dismay, my main intention in approaching them had been to break up the make-out session. Van was only thirteen at the time, way too young to be starting in on that type of behavior. My goal hadn’t been to ruin their relationship, but once I got within five feet of him my hunger leapt into the driver’s seat and sent me lunging for his throat.

I hadn’t even suspected I would react to him, so that made it worse. He had been a friend of Van’s so long, he felt familiar to me because of how much she talked about him. At that moment, it didn’t cross my mind that I had never officially met him. If I had remembered that, I never would have walked up so casually. Regardless, my hunger wanted him ferociously. After that initial contact, even seeing him forced me to scramble for control. I forced Van to say goodbye. She did, and I know how much it hurt her to do it. I hated myself for demanding it of her.

I’ve never told her, but I have been trying to make up for that day ever since. Van keeps Ketchup away from me as much as possible. My love for her can’t even be expressed. She is so much better than I will ever be, but I’m trying. She has no idea that for the last three years I have found inconspicuous ways to test my ability to withstand Ketchup. If I see him in the hall at school, I will follow behind him for a few minutes. The few times we’ve been in semi-close contact, I push myself a little more each time to get closer to him without letting my hunger rouse. My promise to grant her one favor has intensified my efforts lately, because I know that is the one thing she wants more than any other.

The amazing thing is…it’s working.

I’m still miles away from being able to sit down to a quiet family dinner with him, but it’s getting better. With Ivy, though…my desire to see her blood spilled doubles every time we’re together. What scares me is that I don’t understand the difference between her and Ketchup. This has to work. I don’t know what else to do.

“What are you thinking about?” Ivy asks over the music and air conditioner.

It’s actually a question I can answer, for once. “You’ve probably guessed why Van and Ketchup don’t date, despite the fact that they’re clearly in love with each other, right?”

Ivy nods. “It’s hard to invite him to family get-togethers when your big brother wants to kill him, I suppose.”

“Pretty much,” I say with relief. She understands.

“So, why are you thinking about Ketchup?” she asks.

“It’s getting easier to be around him,” I admit, “but it only seems to get harder with you.”

For a moment, she’s quiet. I pull into Ivy’s favorite fast food place and cut the engine. The quiet suddenly imposed, with the loss of the music and blasting air, sends a shiver through me as my hunger makes a bid for control. My hands grip the steering wheel. I have to jump out of the truck to keep control. Ivy follows more slowly and remains at a distance. 

“I think it’s because I’m a girl.”

“What?” I ask.

She looks over at me. “This…hunger, it’s not just a desire to cause pain, right? There’s something else along with that, I’m guessing, because there are different ways to hurt people, different kinds of pain that hurt some people more than others.”

“Yeah,” I say slowly. It is almost scary how well she understands this. Not that it should be surprising—Ivy is incredibly intelligent—but it worries me that she might figure out other things as well. The fear building inside of me doesn’t seem to reach Ivy. She continues with her theory.

“I bet with Van, her hunger is impatient, adrenaline driven. It wants the pain to be fast, intense, and messy. That seems to be how she reacts to a lot of situations, anyway.”

Again, it’s a little frightening how perceptive she is. “Yeah, Van is impulsive when it comes to her emotions and hunger.”

“And you…” she starts.

My body tenses up. I’m not sure I want her to continue. More likely than not, she’ll peg me spot on. I don’t want to hear her assessment of me.

“With you, I suspect you’re more thoughtful. You plan. It’s probably like how you play football. You see the other guy coming, and you put yourself in their path. But the whole time he’s running at you, you’re drinking up his fear, planning how to hit him so you can get the most benefit while still injuring him the least you can. The impact is the payoff.” She turns to look at me, a quiet sort of understanding in her eyes. “Am I right?”

I nod slowly. It sickens me to hear her describe how I play. I rarely think that much while playing football. I don’t actively “plan” how each encounter will play out, but I realize she is exactly right. I do it on instinct now. I draw out each experience to make sure I get fed as much as possible. My shame momentarily outweighs Ivy’s presence.

But she isn’t finished, yet.

“I bet that’s why it’s different with me than it is with Ketchup. Boys fight. It’s sudden and explosive. But a relationship is always a balance between pain and joy. With me, every time we’re together you have to fight between desires to kill me and kiss me. You want both, but can only have one. It makes the reward, in either case, so much greater than a simple fist to the face.”

My body is trembling. Everything she said is the truth. If it weren’t, Lisa would still be alive. I have buried that night so deep in my mind that it rarely surfaces anymore, but Ivy’s words have brought it all back. I feel myself slipping into the memory, and no amount of struggling can save me now. I feel helpless as the scents of juniper and rabbitbrush drift through my mind.

***

The wind had just a hint of winter chill that night. I steered the four wheeler off the path and onto a flat area, while Lisa stayed pressed against my back. Her head nestled against me, her arms securely around my waist even though we were no longer on the steep trail. She didn’t stir until the engine rumbled to a stop. Even then, she seemed content to stay wrapped around me. I was the one to move first.

Turning so my back was against the handles, I pulled Lisa into my lap. She smiled and touched my face. My world had been nothing but chaos during that time. Oscar’s erratic behavior had everyone scared. I had just spent two months locked up in my room because my hunger was so out of control I couldn’t be trusted to be around my own family. I was so behind on my school work that I was in danger of losing eligibility to play sports. If that was taken away from me, finding an outlet for my hunger would get even harder. I felt like I would buckle constantly. Lisa was the only one who gave me any balance. She anchored me to the good still left in life. I knew it wasn’t easy for her. It scarred her almost as much as it did me.

But for that one night, we had left the fear and uncertainty behind. It was only the two of us under a blanket of stars that held no judgment. I wanted to show her how much I loved her. My fingers slid across her delicate skin and tangled in her hair. She responded at once, leaning toward me and accepting my kiss. Her arms held me so gently at first. It was just meant to be a thank you for how much she had helped me through the previous difficult months, but pent up emotion made it something more.